the "things you wish you could say" thread

[ciao_yall]

This is not how you plan a BBQ for 100 people. Please just SAVE FACE, reschedule, and pony up for our culinary students to pull something together in the cafeteria.

I'm dreading this disaster.

[sonoamused]

Who the hell is still sending a fax in the 21st Century?  Has Hizzoner not heard of a pdf attached to an email?

Welcome to a lot of small town operations

[downer]

Dear Brightspace Ambassador

When will you be inviting me to a dinner at your embassy? Will there be a ceremony where we welcome you to our land? Are you in hiding because you are scared of the natives?

[sinenomine]

Dear student who is trying to appeal a grade: Yes, you've missed the deadline. Ascribing that to not being able to track down my email address won't work; my contact info is (to coin a phrase) on the syllabus, and also on the campus directory and the public website, and it appears magically if you start typing my name into the email platform. You also say you had an A until your computer crashed during Finals Week and IT was unable to help. Looking at Canvas, I see repeated messages and feedback from your professor over the entirety of the semester referring to missing and late work. Stop blaming others and making up cockamamie stories and own your actions.

Mic drop.

[Puget]

Dear student who is trying to appeal a grade: Yes, you've missed the deadline. Ascribing that to not being able to track down my email address won't work; my contact info is (to coin a phrase) on the syllabus, and also on the campus directory and the public website, and it appears magically if you start typing my name into the email platform. You also say you had an A until your computer crashed during Finals Week and IT was unable to help. Looking at Canvas, I see repeated messages and feedback from your professor over the entirety of the semester referring to missing and late work. Stop blaming others and making up cockamamie stories and own your actions.

Mic drop.

It always baffles me that students don't seem to realize we can see their activity and grades in the LMS. And also that they apparently don't think we talk to our colleagues.

[the_geneticist]

Dear student who is trying to appeal a grade: Yes, you've missed the deadline. Ascribing that to not being able to track down my email address won't work; my contact info is (to coin a phrase) on the syllabus, and also on the campus directory and the public website, and it appears magically if you start typing my name into the email platform. You also say you had an A until your computer crashed during Finals Week and IT was unable to help. Looking at Canvas, I see repeated messages and feedback from your professor over the entirety of the semester referring to missing and late work. Stop blaming others and making up cockamamie stories and own your actions.

Mic drop.

It always baffles me that students don't seem to realize we can see their activity and grades in the LMS. And also that they apparently don't think we talk to our colleagues.

One of the best features of the LMS is that you can see when they accessed, turned in, etc.  I had a lot of conversations end when I sent a screenshot.  Except for the rare student who doubles down and swears they don't know how their unique IP address was used to both turn in their homework and to post answers on Chegg.com.
(For that particular student, I'm pretty sure they paid someone to take their classes online for them.  It did not end well for the student.)

[downer]

Dear Dean
Thanks for your auto-reply indicating that you are "away from campus" for a week. It give me flashbacks to the 1990s, when that was a thing. However, it does not inspire confidence in you, given that your job is about online education.

Please note I have formed a new resolution. For each piece of nonsense that comes from your office to my inbox, I will be assigning myself 2% less work this fall.

Enjoy your time "away from campus"!
Downer

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Dear student who is trying to appeal a grade: Yes, you've missed the deadline. Ascribing that to not being able to track down my email address won't work; my contact info is (to coin a phrase) on the syllabus, and also on the campus directory and the public website, and it appears magically if you start typing my name into the email platform. You also say you had an A until your computer crashed during Finals Week and IT was unable to help. Looking at Canvas, I see repeated messages and feedback from your professor over the entirety of the semester referring to missing and late work. Stop blaming others and making up cockamamie stories and own your actions.

Mic drop.

It always baffles me that students don't seem to realize we can see their activity and grades in the LMS. And also that they apparently don't think we talk to our colleagues.

One of the best features of the LMS is that you can see when they accessed, turned in, etc.  I had a lot of conversations end when I sent a screenshot.  Except for the rare student who doubles down and swears they don't know how their unique IP address was used to both turn in their homework and to post answers on Chegg.com.
(For that particular student, I'm pretty sure they paid someone to take their classes online for them.  It did not end well for the student.)

Yep. I had one of those. Didn't end well for that student either.

[science.expat]

Dear Colleague,

I'm sorry that you were pissed off that I rescheduled our meeting about your KPIs. However I'm very unimpressed that you gave out about me being on leave and allegedly blowing you off. What you didn't know was that I was on sick leave and in hospital having been admitted after presenting to Emergency with chest pains. 

Your 'impressed' boss, SE

[mamselle]

Yeow, entitlement, what?

Just get well.

Don't let the turkeys get you down.

M.

[Harlow2]

Unrelated

It's a great idea, but who is going to do all the work that will be entailed, especially if we have fewer people to work on it?

[the_geneticist]

I've been unsubscribing from so many email lists the last few weeks.  Look here, all you online education company folks, we've learned a LOT during the pandemic and one hill I am "willing to die on" is that online biology labs are terrible.  It's hard, but possible to include a research project in online classes (I know because I've done it!).  Your canned modules are all cookbook activities where students can't even make mistakes!  And don't even get me started on how easy it is to cheat.
I don't want my students to try your simulations/test out your quiz banks/watch your videos.  I want them in the lab!
Stop emailing me.

[hmaria1609]

I got up extra early to drive to another location and sit for this nonsensical all staff meeting?!

[downer]

Dear dean of online education
I know you need to make it appear that you have a useful function, but can we just agree from that start that the idea that it is a good approach to start from scratch in redesigning a course using all your big principles of reverse course design and matching assignments to course objectives is a terrible approach? Course improvement is an incremental process, and starting from scratch would just introduce a lot of problems that were not anticipated. It would be a waste of my time. Furthermore, I would point out that these approaches you are recommending are not evidence-based, but are instead pie-in-the-sky principles that people from education schools came up with.
I welcome the idea of improving courses and looking to see if we are actually teaching and testing students on the skills that we aim to be teaching them. That's fine. But don't ask me to rethink the whole course, which I've been developing for many years, and works pretty well.
There is also a question of good will. I'm willing to go along with your largely pointless exercises so that you can can say that you have a useful role, but don't push it. Be aware that the time you make me spend on this stuff is time that I won't be spending on teaching the course later on.

[ciao_yall]

big principles of reverse course design and matching assignments to course objectives.

Wow. Designing assignments to align with what students should be learning in a class.

Never thought of that. /s